offering a new business proposition to petroleum product dealers, the government has allowed them to use their fuel stations to retail energy efficient LED bulbs, tubelights and ceiling fans available at subsidised rates.
Officials said that the move is aimed at using the vast network of fuel stations maintained by state-owned oil marketing companies (OMCs) for accelerating the sale of energy efficient equipment. OMC have over 53,000 pumps spread across the country. It will also provide pump owners a new avenue to increase their profitability, which they feel has been hit due to non-revision of dealer margin for long.
Consumer would get the LED bulb for Rs 65, tubelight for Rs 230 and ceiling fan at Rs 1,150 at fuel stations. These appliances would be sourced by the three (OMCs) — Hindustan Petroleum, Indian Oil and Bharat Petroleum —from the state-run Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL). The EESL is implementing the government’s efficient lighting programmes under which it is distributing LED bulbs and lights through power distribution companies and other retail channels like online market place.
The EESL has been able to reduce the procurement price of 9 Watt LED bulbs to as low as Rs 38 per unit through bulk procurement. Similar is the case of LED tubelights and ceiling fan,s which are selling at a rate of Rs 600-700 and Rs 1,700-1,800 respectively in the retail market.
